Previews

Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII

There's also the matter of materia, which are magical crystals that hold magic. While they're usually used to cast spells, Dirge uses them to power up Vincent's gun. Equipping the fire materia actually translates into a rocket launcher. The gun (which may actually be named Dirge, now that I think about it) can also be customized in other ways. You can switch out the barrel, which affects accuracy and rate of fire, slap on a scope that lets you zoom in for precision shooting, and otherwise turn your puny starting pistol into a monstrous, gothic looking hand-cannon. You'll be dealing out a lot of damage, but when you take some yourself you won't use a heal kit; you'll down a potion. One's no more realistic than the other, really.

Depending on how you choose to approach the game, you'll spend a whole lot to most of your time aiming with an onscreen crosshair. Countless games have proven first-person to be good perspective to fire from, but because Vincent is also capable of limited close combat (that metal claw isn't just for looks), you can have awkward situations where enemies will be too close to effectively aim at but too far away to bust out melee moves on. This and a camera that needs constant babysitting give the game a bit of an awkward feel at times, but the game makes amends for the trouble with what seems to be pretty decent progression.

One thing that kept the game interesting early on is that despite having to complete straightforward objectives like defeating all the enemies in an area or finding a keycard to open a locked door, the game constantly gives you something for your trouble. I found two barrels, a scope, a piece of materia, and pulled off a limit break in what felt like ten or twenty minutes. If the game can keep up the pace, spin a decent story, and put in enough ties to FFVII to hook fans, it should do pretty well when it makes its North American release.